started
cryin' about not havin' the pump along that she'd been used to seein' in
the yard at home. And I says to myself, 'Look a-here, Jake, I don't care
if they do ketch on to you and yer blamed whiskey business. They're not
the sort to tell on you.' Gee! but that about the pump got me! And I
says, 'Jake, you're goin' to give them the best you hev got.' Why, that
Big Bend desert and lonesome valley of the Columbia hez chilled my heart
in the days that are gone when I weren't used to things; and the little
girl hed came so fur! And I knowed how she was a-feelin'."

He stopped, and seemed to be turning matters over.

"I'm much obliged to you," said Clallam.

"And your wife was jest beautiful about Andy. You've saw me wicked to
Andy. I am, and often, for I rile turruble quick, and God forgive me!
But when that boy gits at his meanness--yu've seen jest a touch of
it--there's scarcely livin' with him. It seems like he got reg'lar
inspired. Some days he'll lie--make up big lies to the fust man comes
in at the door. They ain't harmless, his lies ain't. Then he'll trick my
woman, that's real good to him; and I believe he'd lick whiskey up off
the dirt. And every drop is poison for him with his complaint. But I'd
ought to remember. You'd surely think I could remember, and forbear.
Most likely he made a big talk to you about that cabin."

John Clallam told him.

"Well, that's all true, for onced. I did think he'd been up to stealin'
that whiskey gradual, 'stead of fishin', the times he was out all day.
And the salary I give him"--Jake laughed a little--"ain't enough to
justify a man's breaking the law. I did take his rifle away when he
tried to shoot my woman. I guess it was Siwashes bruck into that cabin."

"I'm pretty certain of it," said Clallam.

"You? What makes you?"

John began the tale of the galloping dots, and Jake stopped walking to
listen the harder. "Yes," he said; "that's bad. That's jest bad. They
hev carried a lot off to drink. That's the worst."

He had little to say after this, but talked under his tongue as they
went to the house, where he offered a bed to Clallam and Mart. They
would not turn him out, so he showed them over to a haystack, where they
crawled in and went to sleep.

Most white men know when they have had enough whiskey. Most Indians
do not. This is a difference between the races of which government
has taken notice. Government says that "no ardent spirits shall be
introduced under a